Research Retreats: In Search of More Focus

Irene S. Davis

After sitting through 4 to 5 days of podium presentations and sorting through hundreds of posters, I have often left scientific meetings with a desire for more science relating to my own area of research. By design, this is the nature of these large annual scientific meetings. There is a need for these meetings to be broad and inclusive in order to attract a wide range of scientists. Certainly, the upside of this is that you have the opportunity to be exposed to the most current research in a number of areas that may be peripheral to your own research agenda. Interest groups have emerged in societies such as the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), which help to provide more focused programming within these large meetings. However, the topic areas are often still fairly broad in nature.

Throughout the 1990s, the Research Section of the APTA has sponsored a number of successful weeklong research retreats on topics including motor control and neural plasticity. Experts in the field were chosen as keynote speakers and research abstracts were solicited from within the scientific community. These retreats were viewed as great forums for rich academic discussions among graduate students, clinicians, and seasoned scientists.

J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2003; 33(8):435-436.

Key Words: research, retreats

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